this cold world (will remember us)
by clairebxrton
Summary: They're both broken, just trying to survive in a world that's cold enough that it's actively trying to kill them and broken people don't get the happy ending like the movies show; there's no magical healing kiss that solves everything. Rule!63 Cisco Ramon. Alternate Universe.


Disclaimer: I make no money for writing this story.

A/N: This takes place in an alternate universe, what I'm calling Earth-25. Things are much darker and different. Warnings include: dark, angst abounds, implied/reference sex, unhealthy relationships, unhealthy coping mechanisms, implied/references alcoholism, minor/past character death, genderbend Cisco Ramon, suicidal thoughts are present. read at your own risk.

* * *

He sees her in Jitters, the coffee shop the only quiet place he can find as he works on grading papers. Her dark chestnut brown hair is pulled into a tight top bun while her graphic half shirt clings to her body, signs of sweet beading at the base of her neck, mixing with a few wisps of hair that's escaped the bright pink scrunchy. Her running shorts stop mid-thigh leaving him with the sight of her long legs, a little chunkier than that of most runners, but Harrison isn't going to complain; no, he is quite content with the sight of her, her lips parted as she breathed deeply.

A rush of hormones fills his body and he has to quickly look away from the woman before thoughts fill his mind. By time he has his body under control again, she's walking out of Jitters, a cup in her hand and a smile on her face. He hates that she has to leave, but watching her walk away is as equally fulfilling as looking at her front.

The next time he sees her, he's in a club with the squeeze of the week who demanded he take her out. Normally he doesn't listen to such demands but he's been wanting to find a reason to leave his office more often. She's wearing a short plaid skirt, a tight corset shirt and thigh high boots and she's serving the drinks. Her lips are painted dark, a smirk tipping them as she watches his eyes on her pushed up breast. He can't help but notice her looks, something he's sure others have told her.

"What do you want, sweetheart?" Is the first thing she says to him and he replies with, "You, in my bed preferably."

If he flushes when she laughs at the innuendo, he refuses to admit it. He doesn't admit to much, not since the accident that left his daughter in a coma and the city with a large group of people that were highly discriminated against. He waits for her laughter to die down, before sliding a key over to her, "My alarm locks at 3,".

He dumps his date and leaves the club, his bright blue eyes meeting her dark ones, lifting one of his carefully maintained eyebrows up as he does so. So he's confident, it's nothing bad when he knows that she'll be coming to him that night.

"I wasn't expecting you." He says when she does show up, quarter to three. They spend three days locked in his house, ignoring phone calls and the knocks on the door. Midway through the second day, while she's laying underneath him, she laughs harshly and scratches his back with her nails.

He hisses, "What the fuck," before leaning in to bite her throat. She laughs again as he does so and he realizes that out of all the fucks he's had in the two years since the accident, he's quite happy with her.

* * *

Two months of meeting up twice a month to hole themselves up in his apartment – because he doesn't go to the house where all that is Jesse surrounds him - and he learns that she hates him. "You killed my brothers with your meta human app." She tells him, panting from sex. "When you came to my bar I was planning on poisoning you or something."

"Why didn't you?" He asks because really, he hates his life and she's a pretty enough mistress that going out by her hand wouldn't be that bad.

Her dark eyes look over at him, a strange look in them as she moves to sit on top of him, "Francisca Ramon. My friends called me Cisco, but you can call me Izzy." Her lips catch his and, well fuck, he fell in love.

Two months after he falls in love, he realizes that he's dating a super villain, which is just his luck.

He's working with the Flash – that goody two-shoes motherfucker – when he catches sight of a folder showing the tattoo that lays in the flesh of Izzy's back: a large white wolf. His breath catches and he realizes that he's going to have to abandon everything that Jesse would want him to do in order to save the life of the girl who's too many years younger than him and filled with rage. He is to blame for her becoming what she has, isn't he, so why shouldn't he be the one to save her?

He goes to her after destroying the folder, her dark eyes catching his through the haze of the early morning club crowd. It's most drug users and serial alcoholics – people that he had once joined during the earlier months after the explosion – but there's also Reverse Flash and he's staring her down. Beside the yellow cowled man is a platinum blonde woman with far too much makeup for his tastes and a dark haired man. Izzy just flashes them a smile and moves past them, "No thanks," falling from her lips as she grabbed him by the arm and walked them out the door.

Harrison doesn't ask and Izzy doesn't offer. They go to his place and has house wrecking sex everywhere, leaving shattered vases and picture frames in the wake. She leaves in the middle of the night, the bright white wolf teasing him as she dresses in her overly tight clothing. If he was more a possessive man, or even really felt as if he had a right to try and tell her not to, he'd make her try and dress more saintly around people who aren't him, but he's not and so he doesn't care.

Let her walk around in tight clothing, luring men and woman to their deaths. She's tough as nails and sure as hell doesn't need him to fuck around her life anymore than he already does. After she leaves him laying in a bed that smells like her and an empty apartment, he falls asleep. Since the accident (explosion is really what is was, but he hates saying that), his sleep pattern had been relegated to whenever the fuck he could and it hadn't exactly leveled out even with the mind blowing sex.

He wakes with a start, jolting up from the bed as a bloodied Jesse begs him to undo his mistakes. He takes big gulping breaths to calm when he finally notices the black leather outfit laying on the floor and the sound of the shower going. Her voice hums from the bathroom and he tries to push Jesse's image from his mind but it's not going anywhere. His daughter is dead – no, just a coma the highly paid doctors say, her brain waves are excellent there's no reason she's not waking up – and it's all his fault. His bed sheets smell like a girl who let herself go after the death of a her brothers at his hands and when she wraps her hands around his neck to pull him into the shower, letting her silky wet skin touch his, he can forget his own tragedies as he's wrapped up in hers.

* * *

To say that his luck was running out was just an understatement that continued to fuck with him as he went to work day in and day out. Going from esteemed scientist to underpaid professor at a community college was the first sign of his luck sliding the rug under his feet and Izzy and her everything was the second sign. The Flash showing up at his now defunct lab with Izzy laying under him as he defiles the sterile lab he built with the memory of his dead wife still fresh in his mind and his daughter at his side, just shows that the world fucking hates him. It's okay, he thinks, because he fucking hates the entire world besides Izzy.

"What?" He grunts as she pulls him closer, burying her face in his chest. It's too touchy for her, she's colder than that. She might use him, possibly even like him, but she doesn't do 'shy' things like that. "I'm a little busy."

"I see that." Oh, Joe West's very disapproving voice burns his very insides. The way the man acts like he's better than everyone. "Is she even legal?"

He lets out a barking laugh, turning to face the man. "I didn't ask her that as I took her from the club she was at, but I'm sure that she's close to legal."

"Bitch." She hisses, scratching his chest and he can feel the vibrations. He never asks her what her powers are, but she likes using them during sex sometimes so he can guess. "I'm legal Mr. Flash." She says louder for the man to hear.

"I need to talk to him." Flash says, his arms crossing over his chest.

"Yes, well, I need to finish this fuck." Harrison cuts in, "I'll met you during our weekly meetings."

"Harrison-"

"Get out." He moans into her flesh and he can just hear the mental flips the man's brain must be doing. He doesn't hate the Flash, not fully, but he does hate that the man's daughter is still alive and fully in awe of her father while his daughter lies on a bed and if she ever woke, she'd probably be disappointed. The man leaves anyway, good for him, but he's not as concerned with sex anymore so he turns on his back and lets her finish.

"I can't believe the Flash caught me fucking." Izzy mutters as she lays on his chest.

"How did I kill your brothers?" He asks, broaching a subject he knows he's not supposed to. She tenses in a way that hurts him because he never wants to be the person that makes her turn into whatever he super villain's name is.

She pulls to sit up, wrapping the sheet around her chest. "One of our neighbors got one of your shit devices," She begins, her voice sharp and angry, "We had neighborhood dinners with everyone because that's what you do when the world is shit. He brought his shotgun and shot everyone who beeped. My brother, Armando, lunged in front of the gun that was focused on me. Bastard shot him dead for protecting his little sister. When he went to go shoot me again, my powers activated fully and I blasted his ass across the lawn, breaking his neck as he tumbled. My other brother, Dante killed himself after realizing he had powers. He didn't want to be a freak."

"Fuck." He whispers, holding a hand to his eyes.

"Yeah, 'fuck'." She moves to stand. "I'm going."

The words 'sorry' stick in his throat because for his life, he's never had to say those words. Back with Tess, she said it first and that's how the fights ended. With his parents, well, he actually didn't give a fuck if they thought he respected them or not. (Secret time: he didn't. They were shit at their jobs and idiots to boot). Jesse and him never truly argued, his daughter was emotional, true, but she was like him and didn't really care if he felt respected, just if he felt loved. He did when she was around.

But it's different with Izzy. She's been fucked by him multiple times, not just in the fun way either. If he was a different man, he'd let her go, but she's his and he's been with her over six months and he's not willing to give up the taste of happiness.

"I'm sorry." He manages right as she's opening the door. Her steps stumble, the body he has spent time getting to know moving under the clothing she wears.

"Fuck."

A smile comes to his lips, "Yeah, 'fuck'."

* * *

She's covered in blood the next time he sees her. His first thoughts are 'fuck'! His first words are, "What the fuck happened to you?"

"Reverse Flash doesn't like it when you say no to him." She mutters as she moves towards the bathroom. He was hoping to continue their talk from earlier, but this takes precedent and so he moves forward to help her. That bastard put two bullets in her stomach region, had one of his little minions burn her and there's signs of a bit of frostbite. She lays on the couch, her head in his lap, complaining after everything's been patched up.

"Who is the Reverse Flash?" He asks and she shrugs.

"Some nobody named Barry Allen." She replies, "What does it matter? He's trying to kill me, he's probably not going through a day to day life."

"I'm going to find him and kill him." He answers, turning back to pay attention to the film while a war happened in her body. Perhaps the fact that he was obviously the only person since her brother to want to defend her was the thing that caught her off guard the most, though he liked to think that it had more to do with the fact that the conviction in his voice was so strong and filled with emotion.

"Fuck off." She manages to say right before she drifts off.

This is their relationship: hot I-not-in-love hate sex, bruises on skin and telling each other off. He's never had a more passion filled relationship. Maybe it's messed up, the way she leaves painful scratches down his back and he leaves sharp purple bruises across her skin, but it's them. They're both broken, just trying to survive in a world that's cold enough that it's actively trying to kill them and broken people don't get the happy ending like the movies show; there's no magical healing kiss that solves everything. If there was, Jesse'd be up and smiling at him, Izzy's brothers wouldn't be dead just for trying to survive in the world he created, and Izzy would smile and joke more.

He, himself, would be more open to the emotions that the dark haired girl brought him. But that's not the world they live in. The world they live in is filled with shit.

(It's just moments where Izzy is sleeping with her head on his chest, snoring lightly while a hand tightened around his waist made him wish he lived in a world with good things. He hopes there's a world where he falls for her and she falls for him and the world lets them be happy. He wants there to be a world where Jesse wakes up and she likes this floozy he's brought into their life and the world accepts it. There's got to be a world where Izzy's not a bad guy, he's not the man who destroyed the city, he has his daughter and the Reverse Flash doesn't exists to shove his dick in their life.

There's got to be world where he didn't ruin everyone's life).

* * *

"Why are you looking up Barry Allen?" Iris West asks one day. Her dad brought her because some stupid reason, Harrison wasn't listening enough.

"He hurt a friend of mine." He answers truthfully for once. He holds nothing against the girl.

She narrows her eyes and crosses her arms, looking so much like her father. Okay, lie, he hates her. "Well stop."

"No."

"Yes."

He slams a tool down just to watch her flinch, "Fuck off, West!" She backs away, Joe flashes into the room and she's gone before he can blink. He's so done with the shit that helping the Flash brings. He doesn't want to be that guy that does good because he's trying to redeem himself. He can't do that. He can't redeem himself from a life of shit. The only redeeming quality he has is Jesse and she's on the verge of death.

Getting up, Harrison takes the things in the workshop that he actually cares about and leaves it behind, not bothering to turn the light off. If he has his way, soon he'll never see that shit room every again. He's done being haunted by his fuck ups. He's done helping people because he thinks it's what Jesse would want. She's not here anymore. She doesn't get to haunt him like a ghost.

* * *

Without his resources, it takes twice as long to find out the hiding spot of Barry Allen, aka the Reverse Flash. It also takes twice as long for him to find out that Barry Allen used to be in the care of Joe West and that everything went wrong.

"I went back in time to kill my mother." The boy – because he is hardly a man – whispers. His eyes scream of all the pain in the world and Harrison is started to regret searching down him. "What makes you think I won't kill you?"

"Because of me." Her sharp voice rings across the entire warehouse and sends a brief chill down his spine. That's her scary voice and by god does it fill Harrison Wells with such desire. Barry Allen looks up, a look of disgust on his face.

"You think you can stop me?" He asks, laughing lightly. "Oh that's insane. No one can stop me."

"I can."

Barry Allen looks back at him, leaving Izzy to stew. "Did Cisco ever tell you that I sent her to kill you? Oh she wanted the revenge for her brothers, but she was never going to take it. She was never going to use her powers to the fullest of the potential." He monologues. "She's too weak to do it. Too insecure."

And maybe if either of them paid any attention, they would've noticed the fact that Izzy didn't look right, her eyes dark and deranged. It takes her a full five minutes to put down Barry Allen, Killer Frost, Deathstorm, Zoom, and other mooks with names that Harrison had never taken the time to learn. Her anger is palpable as she uses her powers to the fullest of extent, shaking the world from underneath everyone and disconnecting them from their nervous systems before they can think about fighting back.

It's not gruesome at all. It's simple and light. There's no blood and it's all anti-climatic. He was expecting a bigger show, he was expecting to kill Barry Allen. Yet, he didn't. She did and when she's done with the murder, she stalks to him. Anger crosses her face as she unties him and he moves to stand. She slaps him across the face before her own face falls to sorrow.

"I could've lost you." She whispers, the words more broken than she did when she talked about her brother. "I could've lost you."

* * *

He asks, "Can you travel between worlds?"

She blinks, looks at him and nods. "Why do you ask, baby?" Her voice turns into a purr as she moves closer, his hand reaching out to wrap around her waist. His daughter stares at him from her spot on the floor; her memories aren't as clear as they were before the coma and she's not exactly a hundred percent sure of herself, but she's alive and she understands why he's dating a girl like Izzy. He can see her mind finding the reason he's asking such a weird question while they look out from the roof of the defunct lab and a grin grows on her face as she does. She's got speed - better than the Flash could ever hope to have not that the man has talked to him since finding out that he teamed up with a girl that solves her problems by with murder.

"This world's lost it's charm." He answers, "I think we can find something better."

And by god they will, they'll burn every world that disobeys their desire to take it over until the find the world that fits them perfectly. They're tired of being cold broken shards and fire seems like a great solution.

"Bonnie & Clyde are on the warpath." Izzy whispers as she kisses his lips, Jesse zipping around behind them.

"Who's Bonnie & Clyde?" His daughter asks as she stops with two suitcases at her feet.

"We are."


End file.
